"I don’t want a f***ing baby right now."
This was pop singer Lily Allen speaking of her "four or five" abortions in a recent interview – she can’t remember exactly how many; she used to "get pregnant all the time".
It's hard to know in just what direction to take a response. Perhaps we can point out that if, for instance, some man had brandished a gun at her and told her he didn’t want her alive right now, the media would (rightly) erupt in righteous outrage about appalling violence against women. Instead, the interviewer simply enthused: "I’m so happy I can say that and you can say it and no one came to shoot us down, no judgement. We’ve had about the same amount of abortions." No one shot them down, no judgement. She’s right. They got away with it, and no one found that terrible.
Why is modern storytelling so disappointing?
Recently, I started reading three new novels.One of them I came across on a table in Waterstones, a new …